


at last, here we are

by Scourge of Nemo (Disguise_of_Carnivorism)



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: BDSM, Bottom Crowley (Good Omens), Discussions of BDSM, Light BDSM, Light Dom/sub, M/M, No Actual Scening, No Sex, No Smut, One Shot, Post-Apocalypse, Top Aziraphale (Good Omens), Unresolved Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-22
Updated: 2019-12-22
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:07:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,447
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21897160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Disguise_of_Carnivorism/pseuds/Scourge%20of%20Nemo
Summary: After the Apocalypse, Aziraphale starts reading up on BDSM. It’s absolutely not Crowley-related. Not even Crowley-adjacent.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 97





	at last, here we are

**Author's Note:**

> No sex here; just tension-filled conversing. There are mentions of BDSM, so content warning on that. Nothing explicit or specific (except a joke about caning).

It begins innocently, all things considered.

Aziraphale orders a box of some old classics, first. De Sade, which is dreadful stuff, really, except for the mocking social commentary baked in among the sex. Von Sacher Masoch, which is only barely more tolerable. 

Then he branches out. Books written by bull dykes and leather daddies. The odd instruction manual. Fiction, non-fiction, memoirs, a rather rousing novellette about a gay transgender vampire.

It’s absolutely not Crowley-related. Not even Crowley-adjacent.

An idle curiosity, Aziraphale tells himself. Yes, he's never stocked queer erotica before, but times have changed and needs must and all that. He really ought to sell something to keep grubby fingers away from his first editions. This is Soho, after all. 

Aziraphale does have to admit his mind has wandered since the Apocalypse. Around Crowley, especially. Their shared late-night ramblings have filled Aziraphale with things he tries not to dwell on. Sometimes Aziraphale’s eyes catch on Crowley’s hands as they wrap around the neck of a wine bottle, swallowing. Aziraphale’s mind goes somewhere, then. He imagines the wet warmth of mouths touching, and the bob of Crowley’s throat, the stretch of its tendons, the purse of his lips.

Alright, yes, maybe Aziraphale’s new interest in reading material does have something to do with Crowley, a bit.

But not just Crowley! His mind also wanders when he’s alone. Especially when he’s alone.

After so many years of feeling watched, the sudden feeling of abandonment leaves Aziraphale with unprecedented freedoms. He tries not to dwell. But the lack of eyes from heaven makes certain things easier. And stickier. 

It’s only natural, Aziraphale reasons. His life has changed, abruptly. He has reason to feel upset, off-kilter, distracted. Acting out, just a bit, wouldn’t be unreasonable. What is it the humans say? Phases, and all that. 

But there’s a perfectly good, nonsexual reason, really, for how Aziraphale has ended up balancing a three-foot-high armload of BDSM smut.

All of this is what Aziraphale wants to say when he runs smack into Crowley.

Instead, he squacks, "Ack!" He fumbles with the books. They go flying.

"Uh --" Crowley starts. 

A cat-of-ninetails splays across the cover of the most visible book. No Mercy, reads the title. Aziraphale stifles the urge to kick another book over the cover to hide it -- anything else in the pile is guaranteed to be something just as damning. He hopes Crowley hasn't noticed.

Crowley is staring at the ground. His eyes bug out. He has definitely noticed. "What are you…" Crowley starts, but can't get it out. His jaw snaps shut.

Aziraphale can’t seem to bring himself to say anything. He wonders, absently, if he should just knock over the nearest bookshelf and make a run for it. 

Crowley’s mouth opens and closes. After a few false starts, he manages, "What?"

"I just -- you know -- I --"

“Felt like a bit of a change in pace?” Crowley asks faintly.

“Er,” says Aziraphale. “It’s none of your business?” he tries. 

“Right.” 

“I’ve been…” Aziraphale tries again, “...bored.”

“So you decided to take up caning hapless humans. Only logical.” Some of Crowley’s cool has crept back, though it sounds decidedly unbalanced. There’s an unnatural ease to the words. He is trying so hard to sound nonplussed that he sounds, instead, rather plussed.

“I rather thought the other way around.” If he has to have this conversation, Aziraphale decides, he’s not going to be happy or forthcoming about it. 

Crowley snorts. “Right. You,” he says, as if his doubt is self-explanatory. 

Aziraphale, for lack of better options, kneels to start gathering the books. His face is burning.

Crowley falls silent. Aziraphale doesn’t look at him. For a moment, Aziraphale feels a shred of hope that this mortifying interaction will be the end of it. That he will stack up his books, and set them on a shelf, and turn to Crowley and say, “Right, lunch then?” And they will go to lunch, and not another word will be spoken on the matter of his literary indiscretions. 

Crowley shatters that hope. 

“So is that, er, something you’d, ah, something you’d --” He scratches the back of his neck. 

Aziraphale’s hands still. Something lurches in the pit of his stomach. 

He has options, he knows. Lunch is still in reach. 

He could do what he’s always done. The walls have lowered between them, since the apocalypse. Since their side. They’ve spent nearly every day in each other’s company. But Aziraphale could put the walls back up. He knows just the right words: Just a spot of research, dear boy. Thwarting, as it were. Wouldn’t want my adversary getting a leg up.

And Crowley would know he was lying, look him in the eye, and say, Right, well. Can I tempt you to a break? or Of course, angel. Whatever you say and roll his eyes or make a joke about sullying himself with human pleasures. 

Business as usual. The arrangement, as written. 

Or. Or. 

Aziraphale doesn’t want that, anymore. 

Is that something he’d like. 

“If you must know.” Aziraphale huffs. He drags his eyes up from the floor, and looks straight into Crowley’s sunglasses. “If you must know, I thought that you would.”

“Me?” It’s nearly a shriek. “You think that I --” Crowley’s voice cracks. 

Aziraphale sees the calculus in Crowley’s shocked expression. He doesn’t seem to like how the numbers are adding up. 

“So you think… that I am… into -- that,” Crowley says, pointing at the floor. “And you decided to… read up?” 

“Well, you do give a certain impression, you know,” Aziraphale says. He can't remember what you're supposed to do with hands. His fingers flutter and twist. 

"I really, really don't."

"Well, you, you know --" 

"Are a demon?"

"-- wear leather pants." Aziraphale gestures helplessly. “You give off a certain. You know, cool. It’s very cultivated. Self-assured. In control. Like the posters, and the -- the videos. And I do, you know, tend to be the one who sets the limits between us. As it were.” 

"...Right."

“You slammed me against a wall, Crowley!” 

“Right,” Crowley says again, looking dazed. A flush has crept high onto his cheeks. “Right.” 

Aziraphale has gathered all the books. He lifts them all at once, turns away, and starts to shelve them in his newly minted erotica section. 

Crowley makes a small noise behind him. “Is that something you want? Or just something you think I --” 

There’s something building between them, now, something livewire that makes Aziraphale’s pulse come quick and the breath catch in his throat. His hands still on a first edition Personal Recollections of the Use of the Rod, ambiguously 1850s. A tricky find. 

“Do you not?” asks Aziraphale, resolutely not answering the question. 

Crowley sucks in a breath. Aziraphale turns, slowly, to meet his gaze. Crowley’s eyes are wide; he hasn’t moved from the spot where, seemingly ages ago, he collided with Aziraphale and knocked the books from his arms. His shoulders are hunched, hands shoved in his pockets.

“No,” Crowley says. “No, I am. Could be. With --” He closes his eyes. “With you.”

“Ah,” says Aziraphale. 

“It’s just. You’ve got it rather backwards, is all.” 

Oh. Oh. 

Aziraphale’s hands clench. “How so?”

“I don’t… I’d rather…” Crowley stammers, then heaves a gulping breath of air. “Usually when I do this, I sub. That’s what I’d want to do. For you.” His eyes wrench shut, and his mouth twists. 

“I think I’d like that,” Aziraphale says, finally. 

Crowley looks at Aziraphale. Looks at the floor. Lifts his whole head to stare at the ceiling. 

Crowley clears his throat. "Right, then," he says, and drops to his knees. 

Aziraphale’s heart climbs into his throat. He can’t breathe, suddenly. Crowley’s hands are warm, clinging in the fabric of Aziraphale’s trousers, wrapping around the back of his knees. He buries his face against Aziraphale’s shin. 

Crowley’s fingers tremble. Aziraphale trembles, too -- all of him.

Aziraphale doesn’t say anything. 

After a long, fraught pause, Crowley breaks the silence. 

“Angel?” Crowley asks, and there’s something fragile in his tone. Aziraphale knows, just on instinct, that if he picks the wrong words here, he has more power to hurt Crowley than he ever has before. 

“I didn’t mean now,” Aziraphale manages to croak. 

“What if I want to? Now?” 

Aziraphale takes a shuddering breath. He feels Crowley’s shaking hands on him, and he pretends not to see the sheen of tears starting to gather in Crowley’s eyes. 

He thinks of Heaven, and of Hell, and of the forms of bondage that he never chose. He thinks of choices that he never felt allowed to make. 

He thinks about what he wants. 

“Then I’d say we’ve waited long enough,” Aziraphale says, at last.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading. [follow me on tumblr if you want.](https://neverfeedthesarcophagi.tumblr.com/) I love comments and try to respond to everything. 
> 
> me, drafting: I have an idea for a fun BDSM oneshot, probably with sex
> 
> me, writing: it seems perfect to end it right here before literally any sex happens to spare us all the embarrassment, actually


End file.
